Cry me a river

It was not long after I had struck out on my own. I was grabbing jobs left, right and center.
Working long hours for any price. If I quoted you $100, with a little persipration you could have beaten me down to $25. Seriously!
At that time I was trying to build a client base, so I [...]

God bless the small-shop man

Last Saturday, I was driving all around town trying to locate an item for a client.
The item is not necessarily rare, but the specific colour is.
My experience that day was an interesting one.
Firstly, I am not a regular Saturday shopper so it never bothered me that most stores closed their doors at 12?
But seriously, which [...]

Is it all bad?

Wait a minute!
This blog is beginning to sound like doing business in Guyana is like walking through a snake pit. Cobras, scorpions and other venomous crawlers of the night all trying to get at you.
No it is not. Even though it seems that way at times.
When I first left my last job to work full [...]

I fell into the urgency trap – Part II

OK, so here I am at the bottom of a pile of emails.
“hey, on the contact page, change an to at.”
“ammm, please change this to that.”
“Hi, on the front page changes this…”
“Please change..”
“Change, change, change!!!!!”
Was my request for a single email addressing the typos unreasonable? (Please let me know in the comments section)
The dramas continued [...]

I fell into the urgency trap

Work and some amount of laziness prevented me from writing for the past few days.
Work is still piled up, but I read somewhere that blogging actually helps to relieve stress, and as we all know – there is no shortage of stressful situations and people in Guyana .
I mentioned an incident in my last post [...]

Mailbox: Beware of requirements creep.

Guest post: Gofer
One of my recent comments here included the concept of the client asking for modifications after seeing your work. I find this always happens, no matter what you do. Most clients don’t know precisely what they want, or are unable to express it in an unambiguous manner. What this means is, when you [...]

What is done in the dark, will come to light…

Ring, Ring, Ring….
>> Good Afternoon…
Hi, I hear you does do websites.
>> Yes I develop websites.
We could meet? I would like to build a website.
Arrangements are made….
This phone call happened about three years ago.
I met with the potential client (we’ll call her Vicky) and she described a wonderful idea for a website.
She was creating a one-stop [...]

Don’t change that cheque yet!

I was speaking with a friend tonight, who mentioned some issues she was having collecting her fees from someone she did work for recently.
She said, after some unique investigative work, she discovered the person has a history of late-payment and in some cases non-payment
It reminded me of an incident I had with a [...]

Advance payment please! – Act III

Our hero begins his day with his usual breakfast of a ‘cup of joe‘ after another night of working until 4am.
Yawn!!!
Have to get up, my daughter has to go to school.
“Daddy, I would like to have a dolly house please and a barbie”
“OK baby I will buy one for you”
Liar! You know you can’t afford [...]

I want to travel too!

A message popped up on Yahoo! Messenger from a friend I haven’t spoken to in a while.
Yo what’s you number again?
I send him my number
>> What’s up? You got a big job for me?
Yea, a man want a site designed. I’m giving him your contact details now.
>> OK, thanks
The phone rings about 5 minutes later [...]